Monday, September 20, 2010

Mad Men has earned just praise as one of the best shows on television. As has been suggested elsewhere, there are few shows on television that speak as richly and sharply to the Age of Obama. The premise of Mad Men--a show about the creation of the true lie that is advertising and the happiness machine--is actually a window into the illusory power of memory. Ultimately, Mad Menis a meditation on the lie of whiteness, suburbia, American prosperity and consumerism. In exposing this true lie as such, Mad Men deftly engages questions of power and identity in ways that often go unnoticed by the casual viewer (and frankly by many professional reviewers who to my astonishment have not commented on the centrality of race to the show's melodrama).

This is the genius of the show. On the surface Mad Men is "just" about men of a certain age and their corporate machinations as they try to cultivate desire in the consumer's republic. More than offering a mere Easter egg of detail that some shows offer (of which my beloved Boondocks is a prime example), there is real meat to Mad Men.

The recurring vein in Mad Men's current season is change. The first two seasons offered an idealized world where white men were king, America was rightly ordered following the Korean War, and "those people," the minorities, women, gays, and young people knew their place. The political salience of this fiction is not to be underestimated.

It is the basis for the Leave it to Beaver, Norman Rockwellesque fiction that animates contemporary American conservatism from (at least) Reagan onward. It is a return to the world of Mad Men seasons one and two--"the good old days"--that animates Pat Buchanan and the Right's culture war ethos of the late 1980s into the present. And grappling at this illusion of "a natural order of things" is what Palin and The New Right presently pander to in their histrionic, crackhead-like, political meth-infused, herrenvolk yearnings for a return to "real America."

In Mad Men's third and (now) fourth seasons, those folks who existed in the shadows and on the periphery of Don Draper and his brethren's hermetically sealed bubble are moving front and center. The barbarians may not be at the gates, but the normative centrality of the white male heterosexual gaze is being disrupted. Whether from the Civil Rights Movement, a growing anti-war movement, or the increasing assertion by white middle class women of their own self-interested feminism, change is gonna come. The question remains, how will Don Draper and company respond?

Per tradition, here are some questions and observations:

1. Was "The Beautiful Girls" a pro-feminist or anti-feminist episode? Is the death of Miss Blankenship a signal to a changing of the guard? Alternatively, is her passing a portent of how work and the rat race will trap all of the women in one way or another, even those who were as ahead of their times as Miss Blankenship secretly was? Not to be forgotten--wasn't Burt Cooper's eulogy grand?

2. Could the signal to the various ways that women negotiate their own identities, work, and relationships be captured any more perfectly than the concluding shot where Faye, Joyce, Peggy, and Joan--all four of whom are very different women--enter their respective elevators?

3. Is Don Draper excited by the prospect of a serious, long-term relationship with Faye, a person who in theory remains semi-independent of him? Is Don capable of seeing the women in his life as anything other than secretaries? Is Faye overreacting in her rage toward Don?

4. Is Peggy a liberal racist? Does she honestly believe that black Americans fighting the tyranny of Jim Crow and formal white supremacy have anything in common with her struggle to become a copywriter? Contrary to the norms of center-Left political correctness, I have always suggested that oppressions can in fact be ranked. Here the oppression of middle class white women in the 1960s is quite low on the misery index. Once more, does sexism trump racism? Can Peggy avoid giving in to the power of white women's tears, and the narcissism of Whiteness?

5. You have to love the flippant wink to racism above the Mason-Dixon line in the meeting with Fillmore auto parts. You also got to love the Harry Belafonte/Dean Martin exchange.

6. A historical point. How long until Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce has to reach out to the African American market? Will one of the self-interested, forward looking characters hire a black consultant? Alternatively, will Pete (as signaled to by his hapless conversation in Season three's episode "The Fog" with Hollis, the African American elevator operator, about black folks' television buying habits) work with an African American owned PR firm in order to fatten his bottom-line?

7. We are finally in the center of the frame. Was Joan and Roger's robbery a "giant negro moment?" Given the lack of non-whites on Mad Men, was this scene racist? Was it honest? Could it be both? What to make of the fact that an armed robbery is the spark for a curb-side rutting in the shadows of an alleyway? Depraved or erotic?

8. Talk about take your daughter to work day! Don Draper has to negotiate childcare duties without either the help of his wife, or the heretofore often forgotten Carla.

Question: how often do the white, second-wave feminists of the 1960s forget the role of class and race privilege in their struggle? That the suburban comfort that white women yearned to "escape" was in large part made possible by the working class black and brown women who took care of their kids and homes?

9. When will the 800 pound elephant in the room be dealt with: There is something amiss with Sally. She is oddly adult at times and is clearly the victim of more than parental dysfunction and divorce. The signals are all present: I would suggest that Sally was in fact molested by her grandfather. Thus, the root-spring of her sexual acting out earlier in this season.

There is likely one more dark secret afoot here--the smart money says that Betty Draper was also a victim of her father's advances. The clues are all present. Will Mad Men connect these dots?

18 comments:

Question: how often do the white, second-wave feminists of the 1960s forget the role of class and race privilege in their struggle? That the suburban comfort that white women yearned to "escape" was in large part made possible by the working class black and brown women who took care of their kids and homes?

A: We are basically still just symbols to them, devices to help them figure out who they are. This is why I don't feel a whole lot of loyalty to the term "feminist" now that Quittercuda has appropriated it and used it against "feminists". Self-interest describes 2nd wavers perfectly, they know it, have always known it, and depended on who else but nonwhite women of all classes and working class women of all stripes to tell them so.

Good post. Can you think of any other TV or film that have poked holes in the myth of the "Leave it to Beaver" America?

One that comes to mind is "LA Confidential."

Tangentially, it reminds me of Anne Coulter (shudder) waxing on about 'prelapsarian America' before about 1963. No irony in the fact that she fits none of the expected roles of women from that fantasy land.

@Oh Crap. Do you still see this today? Or have the 3rd and 4th wave feminists woken up to their race/class/and hetero privilege?

@Anon-I am not suggesting that all feminists were of the middle class or upper classes. I am speaking of how class is often ignored under the naive framing that "we are all women." Moreover, the point that gay, poor, working class, and 3rd world feminists (womanists) were making is that the struggle of white middle and upper class women for the freedom to work, is not the same struggle of women who have always had to work to support their families, and suffer under inequalities of race and class.

Whenever this comes up in my classes--the idea that white women's struggles may not be all women's struggles--you should see the angst and anger and surprise on the part of some students. What is my favorite part of the day!

@Anon--there are quite a few: Far From Heaven, American Beauty, Revolutionary Road...

> I would suggest that Sally was in fact molested by her grandfather. Thus, the root-spring of her sexual acting out earlier in this season.

I've seen this theory elsewhere on the web, and I can't help but be disturbed by the idea that masturbation at the age of 10 is considered "sexual acting out." This, in fact, is completely normal behavior and girls quite often begin experimenting this way earlier than boys do. If I recall the scene in question correctly, Sally even checked to make sure the other girls were sleeping first, which can rule out any accusations of sexual exhibitionism.

Something's not right with Sally because she's an individual human person who is not really regarded as such by either of her parents. Don is arguably more in tune with his daughter, but he's not around her enough to really make much of an impact or undo any of the emotional damage Betty has done. As central caretaker, Carla spends more time with and seems to have more of a mentor relationship with Sally than either of her parents, but we haven't yet been shown the extent of that relationship.

I'd argue that Sally's general shift in behavior can be more attributed to the trauma caused by a broken home and immediate appearance of a strange replacement dad than any melodramatic notions of sexual abuse at the hands of Grandpa Gene.

@Queen--I have followed some of that dust up. My instincts are pointing to how grandpa always wanted Sally on his lap, his confusion as to if Sally was his late wife, Sally driving his car, and the signal by the therapist to Sally's mom that maybe there are some things in common between the two. The show has bravely dealt with so many of the fictions of suburban whiteness. Pointing out that sexual abuse was none too uncommon would be the icing on the cake. I for one will watch with glee (if that angle is true) at the gross denials on the part of some of Mad Men's fans.

On the onanism point--as a proud practitioner, expert, and devotee of said art--Sally's public masturbation (where I am from a school of thought which believes that rubbing one out in the room where someone else is asleep counts as such...my college roommate and I had many a fight over that point--nasty man that he was) could be a sign of a premature introduction to adult sexual behavior. We shall see.

Small point of clarification: Gene confused Betty with his late wife -- not Sally.

I simply find it old hat when people conclude that female sexual exploration at an early(ish) age is an indicator of abuse, rather than what it is: normal and to be expected. No one would draw such conclusions if a 10 year old boy were caught masturbating (using that term loosely here, since the Sally moment really seemed to have been dramatically overblown by her friend's hysterical mother) at a sleep-over. "Boys will be boys." But the girls must have some traumatic excuse -- like having suffered sexual abuse.

Of course, we'll see where the writers go on all this -- though in several interviews, Weiner has flat out denied the rumors that Grandpa Gene was a child molester.

@Queen. Thanks for the clarification. I will have to rewatch those episodes because I thought her grandfather slipper with her too. I will look for those interviews--are they podcasts? commentaries or the like?

Not to beat the pleasures of onanism to death...go to love that turn of phrase...if my son were masturbating in public I would be quite concerned and not normalize it. Okay, enough of that icky convo.

From where I sit, 3 & 4 do a lot better with hetero and sometimes even ableist privilege than good old race/class. All three waves are going to have to step up their game, though, since they've got some competition from the right.

History is on their side, but I don't think they will. They're losing that propaganda war, for the moment.

From where I sit, 3 & 4 do a lot better with hetero and sometimes even ableist privilege than good old race/class. All three waves are going to have to step up their game, though, since they've got some competition from the right.

History is on their side, but I don't think they will. They're losing that propaganda war, for the moment.

I'm a regular reader, rare commenter, but I've had this discussion of the social construct of Mad Men with several people and just wanted to add on to the cipher.

Before I get into the feminist aspect lets look at some of the other interesting American societal shifts represented by the characters. Starting with:

Mr. Pryce and the Brits run at Sterling-Cooper which represents the last hurrah of the British Empire trying to milk a few more dimes from its most erstwhile former colony. Pryce represents that old British patriarch who's omnipresence is still dominant over 2/3rds of the globe (and in the home I grew up in with a traditional Jamaican mother.)

The single mother in the Draper's hood (who's kid had a crush on Betty) who represented this social pariah in their hood, which ironically according to the Atlantic Magazine's "The Death of Men" is actually the "future" of the American family (HRUMPH).

Salvatore - Who's very appropos as the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" character. But allow me not to get in to a character analysis tangent.

Is the relative empowering of Peggy Olsen merely a throwing bone to "get them off our back?" Or is the more important interaction is when Peggy looks to Don for help with her problem employee? Peggy was going to fall on her damsel in distress routine, and Don told her to man up. Which to me lies the crux of this feminist angle. In many ways the "second-wave" feminist is much like the college student. They want and love their independence but when the real trouble hits, the tears come and they run back to daddy for help. So is it truly a move for equality, when you still empower your oppressor due to your lack of wherewithal in battle? I think this speaks to the sense of privilege you elude to, because it is a group of people that was relatively shielded from struggle so when it does come it does not now how to fight and resorts to the safe harbor with the hopes someone else does the heavy lifting. I think Joan appreciates her new power position but "knows her place". Peggy is out in relatively unchartered territory and like most new to the struggle latches on (oh so gently) to the struggle of the Negroe as her own template. Equal But Separate Struggle.

The race factor on the show is phenomenal in its subtlety. Unlike the Spike Lee race cannon this is more like Chinese Water Torture or the 1000 Cuts of Death. The fact that Weiner so perfectly puts black characters so far in the back (in tune with society at the time) that the only people that really notice most of them are other black viewers. The episode of marketing TV's to blacks made me ask my old man what TV brand of TV did he have growing up, but was amazing that the elevator operator emerged and then disappeared back in to the Negroe Servitude Ether... Another great one was the discussion around the Sonny Liston-Cassius Clay fight. Liston the classic Giant Negroe was favored by all against the brash mouthy Clay/Ali which was never liked (and still isn't) but also represented the simmering outburst of blacks in America.

@40--you merced the Peggy observation. She still have mom and pops to get her back and throw her a safety line.

If any other show had the giant negro moment--and as you pointed out the other moments of black appearance/disappearance (don't forget the brothers fired over supposedly stealing from a locker...when it was one of the white characters who did it)--there would be a problem. Mad Men is building to something really spot in their observation on the visibility and invisibility of blackness in the white gaze of that time.

Whenever this comes up in my classes--the idea that white women's struggles may not be all women's struggles--you should see the angst and anger and surprise on the part of some students. What is my favorite part of the day!...

& this also is my favourite part of discussion with my non poc friends... i cite the recent feminist outrage over oprah championing barack....

Seriously don't even get me STARTED on those fake racist feminazi bitches!! It was just like when Hillary and her co-horts were campaigning. One minute she's all 'I am woman hear me roar' but when s**t got to too tough for her ass she ran to hubby to help and shed crocodile tears to get votes. That also goes for the sexism whining which is pretty ironic seeing how she had NO problem enagaging in racism frequently but now SHE demands the same respect she wouldn't grant to the 'uppity negro'. This is why I can't stand a lot of white feminist they are full of crap and a half.

"ultimately, Mad Men is a meditation on the lie of whiteness, suburbia, American prosperity and consumerism"

Oh please well what ever excuse you need to justify watching this on the idiot box. But I'll tell you what it really translates to on the ground. "Man Men parties", Man Men clothing styles embraced by both men and women, etc. In short this show has made the 1950's cool again and it's lack of Blackness on the show simply makes segregation o.k. while glorifying American white supremacy

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